As I have stated, my American Idol experience is limited, having watched the show for part of one season about 6 years ago (and that only happened because I was home with the flu and got sucked in. DAMN YOU, DAUGHTRY). And I’m not a fan of the early audition episodes, where the judges are dicks to people who are displaying obvious emotional problems. Still, I tuned in last night to check out our new judges.

My tiny thoughts are as follows:

* Steven Tyler is, as predicted by me, very entertaining. He appears to have initiated a bromance with Randy Jackson, which has the effect of making Randy Jackson seem cooler. High five!

* Steven Tyler also looks like a cross between a wacky old lady and a douchey rich kid pretending to be a street musician. Nice highlights, dude. Nice SOUL PATCH!

* But hey, that wacky old lady makes some good points. That wacky old lady is supportive and kind, like your cool aunt.

* That wacky old lady is also kind of a perv. At one point he told a 16-year-old girl (who looked like she was 14 and acted like she was 45 and was in general somewhat creepy and unpleasant) that her skirt had “just the right amount showing,” which is so gross it circles back around to awesome. I have to wonder if Fox anticipated this kind of thing. I mean, it is Steven “Love in an Elevator” Tyler.

* J.Lo comes off as really adorably sweet. In fact, she had a hard time saying no to anyone, which resulted in some pretty crappy singers going through. She also – spoiler alert! – looks amazing.

*AI has really upped their game with the hard-luck backstories since I last watched. I feel like sometimes they manufactured drama out of stuff like, “I’m a single mom and I’m doing this for my kids,” or “I was really close to my dad and then he died. I miss him.” But this crop of contenders includes a beautiful war refugee who fled Kosovo with her parents after winning a green-card lottery, and a teenager who lived in a homeless shelter with his family for a few years. Pretty hardcore. When that guy got through the first round of judging, his family burst into tears, including his twin brother who embraced him, and Muzzy gave me the side-eye like he suspected I was about to start crying, too. I didn’t. But the season is young.